jesus. bangkok. neighbors. us.

I have mentioned before that there are women working the streets of our neighborhood 24 hours a day, which is true, but sometimes hard to believe, even living here. _Late-stage pregnancy has brought roving insomnia on me, nothing serious but enough to find me laying in bed at 4:30 am this morning, wondering why in the world my body decided to be awake SO MUCH EARLIER than normal. So, a_little before 6 I got up, put on clothes and went for a walk. _The sun wasn’t up yet but the urban-dwelling birds were aware that morning was coming, and chirping their little hearts out. _Walking the one block north, past the largest local “short time motel” there were about a half dozen young women sitting out on plastic chairs, ostensibly hoping to pick up a taxi-driver finishing a shift or someone on their way to start their work day. _The pain and hard things of our neighborhood somehow seem so much heavier at six in the morning, when the sun hasn’t even come out yet – it seems like “sex for money” just shouldn’t happen in the stillness of early morning time. _The women look tired and so sad. A few mornings ago Iven and I were up just after the sun rose, on Sunday morning. _That is the time of day when the saffron-robed Buddhist monks are just leaving the temples to make their rounds giving blessings and receiving donations for the first hour or so of daylight. _A grown woman in a short skirt got off of her plastic chair and kneeled down to pay homage and ask a blessing from a pair of passing monks, who responded to her the same as they would for any other resident or worker in the neighborhood. _It was such a striking image. _Our life is filled with striking images – most of which we don’t feel comfortable trying to capture on film.

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